Perfect
by Kikyana Kes
Summary: Perfection is impossible. So is acceptance. [HerTom] [OneShot]


Perfect

By Kikyana Kes

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter! Rowling does.

Possibly a little creepy.

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She wanted everything. She wanted all the wizarding community to know her name, she wanted every muggle born and pureblood magician to have heard of her; Hermione Granger; the most perfect of them all. The mudblood who had gotten past her destiny; who knew more than anyone, could do anything better than anybody, no matter what combination of blood ran through their veins.

She sat at the window in the Griffendor Tower, slaving on her Runes essay. It was late at night, so late that it was early, and the the table was lit by the faltering light of a single candle. An owl swooped past, outside, stalking some nocturnal rodent or snake, its feathers luminescent in the still blackness. She didn't notice, so absorbed was she in her sketching.

In the empty place where his soul should have been, he fealt an absurd bit of jealousy for the boy that had caused him his loss of powers, seventeen years ago. That child had everything; was everything that he, himself, could have been if only things had been different.

He was so hungry. He wanted to feed, to sink his fangs into flesh. He was tired of snake's milk, he wanted blood, and bitter, rasbery wine, but wouldn't get any. He had to sit and wait, for the filthy rat to return with a tray of sustenance he doesn't really need but wanted anyway. The hunger was a different kind.

She wanted perfection for herself. She wanted to be the one everyone wants to immitate.

The essay was almost done. She rubbed the sleep from shadowed hazel eyes, and did yet another revision on the delicate diagrams. i The one with two lines and a circle means 'dragon', the one with a triangle and four small dots means, 'darkened', the one that looks like Ron's mouth when he's sleeping means, 'fragile'. /i 

He wanted to be live forever. He was sick of magic and mudbloods and most of all, mortality. He wanted to be the only one left, and to never have to waste any time again. He didn't get any joy out of murder; it had become just another chore to do, so that he could get past whatever obstacle he was facing, so that he could escape his fate for a while longer, before being forced to repeat the whole thing. He wanted to go free.

The servant arrived, his wattery eyes full of fear. His claws shook slightly, as they gripped the carved handles of the expected tray. Each one was meant to look like a snake, but to him, they looked more like ropes. The tray was metal, and dirty, the meagre meal illuminated by a solitary candle, propped in a holster. He would have lit his wand, to give himself just a little more light, but, at that moment, he wasn't sure he could make himself. He was too tired. Just too tired.

She wanted to live. She was sick of risking her life on a daily basis. Sick of late nights battling monsters, when she could be home studding so that she could get perfect grades, so that she could do something after Hogwarts. Assuming she wasn't, while trying to escape.

With one final check, she rolled up the parchement, being very carefull not to smudge her inkmarks. Not that it would have been hard to magic off any flaws; Hermione could have easily used a simple 'Scourgefy' charm, and it would be good as new, if not better, but that day, she was too tired to do any more.

He wanted perfection for others. He wanted everyone to be like he would like to be, the perfect, pure-blood, muggle-hating wizzard who wouldn't dream of accociating with non-magical people, let alone be raised by them. If they wern't perfect, they didn't deserve to live.

The food tasted like metal and dirt. Wormtail and Snape were no master chefs, and even if they had done their best, it would still be tainted by the taste of their contempt; a taste that he had become so familiar with, he almost forgot it was there. He ate anyway, taking in the food he had no real need of. The room flickered in the dwindeling candlelight, casting slythering shadows across the black and green curtains, the twisting silver snake decorations, and the objects he treasured most, his horcruxes.

She hated the way Ron loved Harry. She was jealous of the orphaned boy who was everything Ron wasn't, but whom Ron respected and would follow to the day he was killed, taking Harry's curse. She wanted Ron to love her in that way; the blind, eternal, heart-crushing love that bound him to Harry like a tether could be unwound, and retied around her, if only she could be perfect.

Wearily, she withdrew from her bookbag the next sheet of incomplete homework she had to do. It was for History of Magic; a timeline of the long life of Bernek the Beligerant; a troll with a taste for cheekyness. He had lived only eight-hundred years, a very short lifetime for a troll, before being killed by a "stray" arrow, that she highly doubted wasn't meant for him. She thought she would be thankfull for eight-hundred extra years. It would atleast give her enough time to finish everything, and double and tripple check them, in case of flaws.

He wanted everything. He knew all of the wizarding community knew, and feared his name, the name of Lord Voldemort, and he didn't want them to forget. He wouldn't let them ever forget.

He thought about his arch-nemisis. Only seventeen years old, and yet happy and strong, with a goal to his life. Maybe it was silly for him to hate a boy so young, but what did age matter anymore? He himself was seventy-eight, and yet so inhuman that it was yet another number floating gracelessly around in the hollow darkness inside that only held one-seventh of it's propper anount. The candle got smaller and smaller, until only a drowing flame extended above the liquid wax.

She thought about her friend. Voldemort was a gift to him, she thought. To be a hero, you needed enemys. And Harry truely was a hero. He had been through it all, so absobed in his own life, in the fight that was for his survival and for vengence to the deaths of everyone who had ever loved him.

She wanted to be perfect. If she was, she could save him, and then everyone, everyone, would know her name.

The timeline remained barely started. She wanted it done; she needed tomarrow morning to do other things, like watch the Quiddich tournament, and help battle off whatever monsters arrived at it; plotting the death of the boy who was so alone, and yet so loved by everyone.

She would finish the timeline tomarrow. Today, she was just tired. Just too tired.

The candle flickered, and went out.

-end-

Thanks for reading! This is my first story, hope you liked it! Please tell me how I can make it better. Constrictive critisism would be great.


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